NMC Spotlight: Stanley Klassen

The Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (NMC) Archaeology Lab is housed on the 4th floor of the NMC Department (4 Bancroft Avenue, Toronto) and is home to over 100,000 artifacts. Stanley Klassen, NMC Archaeology Lab Collections Manager/Lab Technician, works not only with the artifacts, but with the archaeological archives and excavation records for ten projects, including the Tayinat Archeological Project  (TAP), the Tall Madaba Archaeological Project (TMAP), survey material such as the Tall Libb Survey, the Madaba Plains Regional Survey, along with legacy data from excavations dating back to the early 1960’s and 1970’s conducted by the late John S. Holladay Jr. (ie. Shechem Iron Age pottery publication, Gezer Gate Project, and the Khirbat el-Kom excavations). In addition to his association with the various NMC archaeological project, Stanley is an active member of a number of affiliated projects with deep connections to NMC. His work with NMC alumni Debra Foran (Wilfrid Laurier University) and Andrew Danielson (Harvard University), and the Town of Nebo Archaeological Project in Central Jordan, is ongoing. This includes both the excavations at Khirbet al-Mukhayyat and the survey of the surrounding region, which has resulted in a number of recent publications by the team.

Recently, Stanley was brought on as one of the ceramic specialists for Team 3 of the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ANEE) at the University of Helsinki. The Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ANEE), funded by the Research Council of Finland and hosted by the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Theology, brings together researchers from diverse disciplines to study how social identities were shaped by shifting imperial dynamics in the ancient Near East, covering a millennium of changing empires.

In 2022, Paula Gheorghiade, a post-doctoral student at ANEE, reached out to Stanley about the possibility of joining the team to reassess the pottery from the Tall Ya’moun Regional Archaeological Survey (TYRAS) and its excavations. Stanley states that “I knew Paula when she was a doctoral student at the University of Toronto and she contacted me as she was aware of my work on pottery from central Jordan. I saw this as a great opportunity for myself as NMC staff to collaborate with scholars at the University of Helsinki and Yarmouk University.” Stanley and the team traveled to Irbid Jordan as the pottery is housed in the Archaeology Department at Yarmouk University. Assessing over 8,300 pottery sherds and identifying nearly 600 diagnostic sherds required a total of six weeks, spread across three separate trips to Jordan. “The most challenging aspect of this project was the short timeline we had to work with the material.” states Stanley. “It was not feasible to ship the pottery out of the country allowing for more time to study it, so we put in very long days to get everything done in the time allowed.”

The Centre is directed by Saana Svärd (Professor in Ancient Near East Studies), who also leads Team 1. Thirty-eight researchers—professors, postdoctoral scholars, and doctoral students—collaborate across four themes: Imperial Identities, Marginal and Marginalizing Regions, Rural Life under Empire, and Macro/Micro Identities. Their work advances knowledge through interdisciplinary collaboration, international conferences, open science practices, and public outreach.

(Professor Saana Svärd, Director of the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ANEE), University of Helsinki: Photo Courtesy of ANEE)

Team 3, led by Antti Lahelma and Marta Lorenzon, explores how local communities lived at the margins of empires. By combining archaeological fieldwork with community engagement, the team investigates how life was experienced in these ‘fringe zones’. Since 2022, the team has collaborated with Yarmouk University (Irbid, Jordan) on surveys, excavations, and post-fieldwork analysis of recovered materials, linking academic research with on-the-ground collaboration. They also work with researchers from international institutions, including Dries Daems (VU Amsterdam) and Stanley, both of whom are now associate members of ANEE. Its research has focused on ceramics recovered during the Tall Ya’moun Regional Archaeological Survey (TYRAS)’s 2022 survey and excavations at Tall Ya’moun and Tall al-Assara.

The TYRAS survey and excavation project explored an area of approximately 290 km2 (24 km by 12 km) around the site of Tall Ya’moun, located 25 km south of Irbid. Alongside reassessing known sites, TYRAS identified thirteen new sites, including the important site of Tall al-Assara, significantly enriching our understanding of settlement activity in this region. As the TYRAS pottery ranges in date from the Early Bronze Age to the late Ottoman period (a span of over 5000 years), it highlights the variety and complexity of the occupational periods in this part of northern Jordan.

Unlike central Jordan, sites on the Irbid plateau are under-published, therefore publishing the TYRAS findings is a central objective for the team. With this in mind, the team’s analysis of ceramics from the 2022 survey and excavations will culminate in a forthcoming 2026 volume with Bloomsbury Academic, entitled "Social Complexity in Northern Jordan in the First Millennium BCE".

In addition to co-authoring two chapters in this volume, Stanley recently co-presented a paper at the 14th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) in Lyon, France, as part of the workshop ‘The 6th Century BCE: The Demise of the Iron Age Kingdoms in Transjordan’. The paper, co-authored with Marta Lorenzon and Paula Gheorghiade, will be published in a forthcoming volume based on the ICAANE workshop.

Stanley notes that “Working with colleagues from Helsinki, Jordan, and elsewhere has been incredibly rewarding.” It has opened the door for future collaboration with potential workshops to be held in Helsinki (University of Helsinki) and Berlin (Freie Universität) and further journal articles on specific aspects of the TYRAS pottery, some of which is now housed in NMC’s Archaeology lab for future petrographic analysis.

This year, Stanley Klassen was recognized with the 2025 Dean's Outstanding Staff Award from the Faculty of Arts & Science. Established in 1999, the Dean’s Outstanding Staff Awards recognize the vital contributions of administrative and technical staff in advancing the academic mission of the faculty. Stanley received the Technical Service Award, which honors a technical staff member whose exceptional contributions have made a significant impact on teaching and/or research through technical innovation and support.

(All Photos in this Spotlight are Courtesy of Stanley Klassen, except where otherwise specified)